Ecosystem-based flood management a comparative study report of the cities of Cape Town and Durban (South Africa), Nairobi and Mombasa (Kenya)
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Date
2021
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Climate and Development Knowledge Network
Abstract
Flooding poses a significant threat to cities in the Global South with unplanned city extensions, prevalent poverty and low adaptive capacity. Depending on location, physical characteristics, and climate change risk, urban areas can be affected by a number of flooding typologies. Urban floods are becoming more common as a result of increasing urbanization, climate change, and poor urban planning including the gap in service provision and limitations in effective solid waste management. Rapid urbanisation means cities have reduced ability to learn from mistakes and build adaptive capacity. Nevertheless, there is a broad range of interventions and measures to reduce flood risk at different scales. Flooding is often considered as the most devastating natural hazard to manage through disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies. Integrated Flood Risk Management (IFRM) describes a broader approach, entailing a combination of structural as well as non-structural elements, which improves resilience to flood disasters. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and nature-based solutions (NbS), which aim to restore and enhance the natural dynamics of ecosystems to buffer the adverse impacts of climate change, can provide many environmental, socioeconomic, and biodiversity benefits for flood risk management solutions. The capital city of Ghana, Accra, and its peri-urban areas have always suffered from annual floods during the rainy seasons. Supported by CDKN, five Accra municipalities are working together with the University of Ghana to address flood risk with a special focus on the use of Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) approaches to finding a lasting solution to the perennial flooding in Accra. In order to give recommendations to Accra officials and to foster exchange between Accra-based District and Municipal officials with selected cities in South Africa and Kenya, this report showcases good practices in flood management approaches by the cities of Cape Town, Durban, Nairobi and Mombasa to provide concise information on DRR practices, with a specific focus on EbA and NbS. Information on the case study cities was gathered using literature review and guided by and expanded upon semi-structured interviews. These were conducted with representatives of city authorities, national governments, public benefit organisations whose work touched on flood resilience, community organisations and research institutions. The researchers agreed upon a survey framework in advance so that data could be collected from the different cities in a systematic and consistent manner. While each of the cities has their very own political, social and cultural context, some of the key challenges related to flooding seem to appear in almost every city. Rapid urbanisation in response to high development needs, leads to an increase in impervious surfaces, areas with a lack of solid waste management or insufficient drainage systems. Especially affected are (informal) settlements located in flood prone areas. Moreover, every city is already observing adverse impacts by climate change such as an increase in heavy rainfall or precipitation extremes.
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Keywords
Biodiversity conservation, Flood control, Climatic changes, Environmental management